Integrated circuit with error repair and fault tolerance

ABSTRACT

An integrated circuit is provided with error detection circuitry and error repair circuitry. Error tolerance circuitry is responsive to a control parameter to selectively disable the error repair circuitry. The control parameter is dependent on the processing performed within the circuit. For example, the control parameter may be generated in dependence upon the program instruction being executed, the output signal value which is in error, the previous behavior of the circuit or in other ways.

This application is a continuation application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. 14/079,276, filed Nov. 13, 2013, which is acontinuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/735,339,filed Jul. 7, 2010, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,621,272, which is the U.S.national phase of International Application No. PCT/GB2008/004301, filedDec. 29, 2008, which designated the U.S. and claims priority to GBPatent Application No. 0803491.0, filed Feb. 26, 2008, the entirecontents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in thisapplication.

This invention relates to the field of integrated circuits. Moreparticularly, this invention relates to the field of integrated circuitswith built-in error detection and repair mechanisms.

It is known from PCT Publish Patent Application WO-A-2004/084072 toprovide an integrated circuit with built-in error detection and repairmechanisms. The use of these repair mechanisms facilitates higherperformance (e.g. a higher clock frequency, a lower operating voltage,etc) by reducing the need to provide a large operating margin to ensurethat errors will not occur. These error detection and error repairmechanisms exploit the realisation that the circuit overhead for theprovision of these mechanisms and the time and energy consumed in theiruse is more than compensated for by their ability to reduce theoperating margin. Furthermore, these mechanisms provide a way of dealingwith the increasing levels of process variability arising as integratedcircuit geometries become smaller and accordingly avoiding the need touse increased operating margins.

Whilst the above error detection and error repair mechanisms areadvantageous, there is never-the-less time and energy consumed inrepairing errors that have been detected. The normal design practicewithin the field of integrated circuits is that errors cannot betolerated and accordingly all errors that are detected (e.g. timingerrors) must be repaired.

At the level of application programs it has been recognised thatprograms dealing with multimedia, artificial intelligence, and someSPECInt2000 programs are fault tolerant at the application level meaningthat they produce acceptable results even though the results are inexactand/or approximations.

US-A-2006/0143551 describes a method of detecting and correcting anerror by detecting the error in a circuit coupled to a first stage of asemiconductor device, and correcting the error in the circuit usingvalid data present in the circuit. The circuit may be a scan cell, insome embodiments. In such manner, errors may be corrected locally,minimizing the impact of the error on performance and power consumption.Other embodiments are described and claimed. If it is determined basedon sensor data that soft errors are unlikely to occur, the processor maycause scan cells or other error detection/correction circuitry to bedisabled to reduce power consumption.

Viewed from one aspect the present invention provides an integratedcircuit comprising:

first processing circuitry responsive to an input signal to performprocessing to generate an output signal;

second processing circuitry coupled to said first processing circuitryand responsive to said output signal to perform further processing;

error detecting circuitry responsive to said output signal to detecterrors in said output signal at a time after said second processingcircuitry has started to perform said further processing using saidoutput signal;

error repair circuitry responsive to an error in said output signaldetected by said error detecting circuitry to perform an error repairoperation; and

error tolerance circuitry coupled to said error repair circuitry andresponsive to a control parameter selectively to disable said errorrepair circuitry such that said error repair operation is not performed;wherein

said control parameter is dependent on at least one of said processingperformed by said first processing circuitry and said further processingperformed by said second processing circuitry.

The present technique recognises that the concept of error tolerance canbe selectively applied within integrated circuits having error detectionand error repair circuitry. There are some types of processing thatgenerate signal values in which it is possible to tolerate errors, andaccordingly the error repair circuitry can be selectively disabled insuch circumstances using a control parameter. Thus, even at the signallevel on an integrated circuit error tolerance can be utilised and hasthe advantage of reducing the performance impact (such as increasedprocessing delay and increased energy consumption) that would otherwisebe incurred in repairing such errors. For other types of processing, inwhich errors are more critical to the operation of the integratedcircuit, the control parameter would be set to indicate that errorsshould be repaired. By determining whether or not it is necessary torepair errors in dependence upon the semantics of the processing beingperformed by the first and second processing circuitry, the presenttechnique reduces the system resources required without adverselyaffecting the results of processing.

As examples of good candidates for acceptable error tolerance it will beappreciated that types of processing that generate output signalsrepresenting data signals are likely to be more error tolerant (e.g. adata signal representing an output audio level or an output pixel valuewill not cause particular problems if it is in error as this will likelyappear merely as a small amount of increased noise in these signals). Incontrast, processes that generate control signals or address signals areless error tolerant and accordingly it is less appropriate to disablethe error repair circuitry when handling such output signals.

The selected disabling of the repair circuitry can be convenientlyperformed under program control by setting of a fault-tolerance modeflag within a mode register. In this way, a programmer can selectivelyenable and disable error repair for certain instructions as theprogrammer will likely be well aware of the type of processing beingperformed and the nature of the data being processed, and accordinglywhether or not the processing is error tolerant. Thus, for high volumesof media data being processed the error repair circuitry can be disabledas errors within this data can be relatively well tolerated.

In other embodiments the control parameter may be set under control of astate machine to match an operating mode of the first and secondprocessing circuitry.

Whilst it is possible that the error repair functionality could beenabled and disabled on a chip-wide basis, it is desirable in someembodiments to use a plurality of fault-tolerance mode flags toselectively enable and disable the error repair circuitry associatedwith different instances of processing circuitry within the integratedcircuit. Thus, the error repair circuitry may be switched off within aSIMD engine likely to be performing the processing of high volumes ofmedia data, while the error repair circuitry can remain enabled in aload store unit associated with the use of address signals or withincontrol circuitry associated with the decoding of instructions andcontrol of the integrated circuit.

The integrated circuit may also operate in a speculative mode in whicharchitectural state of the processor is not updated and in which theerror repair circuitry can be disabled by the control parameter.

The control parameter used to selectively disable the error repaircircuitry may also take other forms. In some embodiments it is possiblethat the control parameter is dependent upon a program instructioncorresponding to the processing being performed that results in theerror. In this way, repair could be switched on and off on aninstruction-by-instruction basis.

The control parameter may be a fault-tolerance field within the programinstructions themselves in some embodiments. In other embodiments thecontrol parameter may be derived based upon groupings of instructionswithin the instruction set, e.g. SIMD instructions, dedicated mediaprocessing instructions and the like may serve to switch off errorrepair whilst other types of instructions may switch on error repair.

Another way in which the control parameter serving to selectivelydisable the error repair circuitry may be derived is in dependence uponthe output signal itself The output signal generated by the processingmay be detected as being in error, but may never-the-less be determinedto lie within acceptable limits where that error can be tolerated andaccordingly the cost in terms of time and energy in repairing that erroris not justified.

A fault-tolerated range associated with an output signal may comprise arange of normal values within a maximum possible range of values. Inother embodiments the fault-tolerated range may be determined independence upon a temporally neighbouring value such that the error willnot be repaired if it is within a certain amount of the preceding value(and/or in some embodiments a succeeding value).

Another way in which the control parameter for selectively disabling theerror repair circuitry may be derived is by observing runs of errorswithin successive output signals. An isolated error may be tolerated andthe error repair circuitry remain disabled, whereas a run of successiveoutput signal values in error exceeding a threshold run length may serveto trigger the enabling of the error repair circuitry. Long runs oferrors are unlikely to be tolerated and can have more than a simplecumulative effect upon a resulting output behaviour from the integratedcircuit.

Another way in which the control parameter may be derived is based upona determination of whether or not the output signal matches apredetermined format. It may be possible to tolerate errors where theformat of the signal is correct even if the absolute value of aparameter being represented is in error. As an example, if a data streamis being assembled, then the signal protocol needs to be correct even ifthe data load may tolerate errors.

It will be appreciated that the error repair operations performed by theerror repair circuitry can take a variety of different forms. In someembodiments the error repair operation will include flushing aprocessing pipe line either partially or whole. In other embodiments therepair operations may include correcting the further processingperformed by the second processing circuitry using the output signalvalue, such as, for example, by passing the corrected output signal tothis second processing circuitry and providing sufficient extra time forthe correct outputs to be generated therefrom.

A further feature which may optionally be provided in some embodimentsis the generation of a substitute output signal in place of an outputsignal that is in error. As an example, when it is detected by the errordetecting circuitry that the output signal value is incorrect, the costin terms of time and energy in regenerating that output signal to haveits correct value is too high and accordingly the error repair circuitrywill be disabled. However, improved error tolerance is achieved bysubstituting a “safe” output signal value in place of the output signalvalue that is in error. The “safe” output signal value is not correct inthat it's not guaranteed to represent the output signal that would beobtained by regeneration using the first processing circuitry, butnever-the-less the “safe” output signal value will more likely betolerated as an error than the erroneous output signal value that couldbe significantly outside the normal acceptable range.

In this context the substitute output signal could be derived fromtemporally neighbouring values of the output signal e.g. a previousknown good value of the output signal could be held and used in place ofthe output signal value that is in error. Other substitution strategiesare also possible.

It will be appreciated that the error detecting circuitry can functionin a variety of different ways. One advantageously low overhead way ofproviding error detection is to detect a change in a value of the outputsignal during a predetermined period as being indicative of an error. Inthe design of integrated circuits, it is conventional to establish atime by which output signals should have properly reached their correctvalue subsequent to processing and propagation through precedingcircuitry. A change in value of an output signal subsequent to this timecan be taken to indicate an error, e.g. a timing error. Thepredetermined period during which such a change is detected can extendbeyond the period at which the subsequent processing circuitry startsusing an output signal value based upon the speculative assumption thatit was correct.

Viewed from another aspect the present invention provides an integratedcircuit comprising:

first processing means for performing processing to generate an outputsignal in response to an input signal;

second processing means for performing further processing in response tosaid output signal, said second processing means being coupled to saidfirst processing means;

error detecting means for detecting errors in said output signal at atime after said second processing means has started to perform saidfurther processing using said output signal;

error repair means for performing an error repair operation in responseto an error in said output signal detected by said error detectingmeans; and

error tolerance means for selectively disabling said error repaircircuitry in response to a control parameter such that said error repairoperation is not performed; wherein

-   -   said control parameter is dependent upon at least one of said        processing performed by said first processing means and said        further processing performed by said second processing means.

Viewed from a further aspect the present invention provides a method ofoperating an integrated circuit comprising the steps of:

performing processing to generate an output signal in response to aninput signal using first processing circuitry;

performing further processing in response to said output signal usingsecond processing circuitry coupled to said first processing circuitry;

detecting errors in said output signal at a time after said secondprocessing circuitry has started to perform said further processingusing said output signal;

performing an error repair operation in response to an error in saidoutput signal using error repair circuitry; and

in response to a control parameter, selectively disabling said errorrepair circuitry such that said error repair operation is not performed;wherein

-   -   said control parameter is dependent on at least one of said        processing performed by said first processing circuitry and said        further processing performed by said second processing        circuitry.

Example embodiments will now be described, by way of example only, withreference to the accompanying drawings which;

FIG. 1 schematically illustrates a register between pipeline stageswithin an integrated circuit including error detection circuitry anderror repair circuitry;

FIG. 2 illustrates a register between pipeline stages within anintegrated circuit additionally including error tolerance circuitry forselectively disabling error repair;

FIG. 3 illustrates a modification of FIG. 2 including a mode registerstoring a fault-tolerance mode flag for controlling the disabling of theerror repair circuitry;

FIG. 4 schematically illustrates multiple pipeline stages each withrespective error tolerance circuitry and fault-tolerance mode flags;

FIG. 5 schematically illustrates a program instruction including afault-tolerance field indicating whether or not error repair circuitryis to be active in the processing of that program instruction;

FIG. 6 schematically illustrates different types of program instructionsfrom an instruction set which can be grouped into a group for which theerror repair circuitry is disabled and a group for which the errorrepair circuitry is not disabled;

FIGS. 7, 8, and 9 schematically illustrate how an output signal that isin error may fall within a fault-tolerated range for which the errorrepair circuitry can remain disabled;

FIG. 10 schematically illustrates an output signal in the form of a wordof data including a header portion and a signal value portion that havedifferent tolerances to errors; and

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram schematically illustrating the operation ofthe above techniques in selectively disabling error repair circuitry.

FIG. 1 illustrates an integrated circuit 2 containing a register (latchor storage element) 4 connected to receive output signals from firstprocessing circuitry 6 and supply those output signals to secondprocessing circuitry 8. The first processing circuitry 6 and the secondprocessing circuitry 8 form sequential pipeline stages within aprocessing pipeline. Associated with the register 4 is a shadow latch 10which is controlled by a delayed version Clk-del of the clock Clk whichcontrols the register 4. Accordingly, the shadow latch 10 serves tosample and store a value being generated by the first processingcircuitry 6 as the output signal at a time subsequent to the capture ofthe output signal by the register 4. The output signal captured by theregister 4 is applied to the second processing circuitry 8 before theshadow latch 10 has re-sampled the output signal generated by the firstprocessing circuitry 6. The difference between the time at which theregister 4 and the shadow latch 10 sample the output signal from thefirst processing circuitry 6 represents a predetermined period and anychange in the output signals that are captured is indicative of anerror.

The most likely error is that the processing of the first processingcircuitry 6 had not completed when the output signal was captured by theregister 4 and accordingly the output signal changed subsequent to thiscapture as the processing finished. It is also possible that afalse-positive error is detected and that the output signal registeredby the register 4 is correct and the value stored within the shadowlatch 10 is the result of noise or some other random variation (suchfalse-positives should be rare). An exclusive-OR gate 14 determines ifthere is a difference between the output signal values within theregister 4 and the shadow latch 10. If there is such a difference, thenan error signal is generated. The error signal controls a multiplexer 14which switches the value for the output signal stored in the shadowlatch 10 into the path where it can be stored within the register 4thereby correcting (error repairing) the erroneous value originallystored within the register 4.

The error signal from the exclusive-OR gate 12 also is applied elsewherewithin the pipeline so as to correct the processing being performed bythe second processing circuitry 8 (e.g. stretching the clock cycle togive sufficient time for the corrected output signal within the register4 to be processed) and performing a pipeline flush either partially ortotally. These techniques are known and described in PCT Publish PatentApplication WO-A-2004/084072. The disclosure of this earlier patent isincorporated herein in its entirety.

FIG. 2 illustrates an integrated circuit 2 including error tolerancecircuitry 16. When a difference is detected between the output signalsstored within the register 4 and the shadow latch 10 (an error isdetected), then the error tolerance circuitry 16 determines independence upon a control parameter (and optionally other parameterssupplied thereto) whether or not error repair is to be performed inrespect of the detected error. The control parameter is set inaccordance with the processing performed by the pipe stages 6, 8. If thecontrol parameter indicates that error repair is to be performed, thenthe error that has been detected is a critical error and an error signalis fed back to the multiplexer 14 in a way similar to that of FIG. 1 aswell as propagated elsewhere within the integrated circuit 2 to triggererror repair operations. However, if the error tolerance circuitry 16determines that the error that has been detected is a tolerable error,then no such error signal will be generated and the error repaircircuitry will remain disabled despite the detection of the error in theoutput signal of the first processing circuitry 6.

Illustrated in FIG. 2 is a “safe” substitute value that can optionallybe generated by the error tolerance circuitry 16 and supplied to thesecond processing circuitry 8 in place of the output signal from theregister 4 which has been determined to be an error. This substitutevalue is chosen to be a value less likely to cause further errors inprocessing, or significant degradation of the processing results. Thesubstitute value can be supplied downstream of the point at which theoutput signal from the register 4 is applied to the second processingcircuitry 8.

Also illustrated in FIG. 2 is a register 18 in which a previous value ofthe output signal for a previous processing cycle can be stored andsupplied to the error tolerance circuitry 16. This previous valueregister can be used in a number of ways. It is possible that in someembodiments the substitute value can be taken from this previous valueregister with this previous value being supplied in place of anerroneous output signal when an error is detected. An alternative use ofthe value from the previous value register 18 is to determine whether ornot error repair should be performed in respect of a detected error. Ifthe captured erroneous output signal has a value too different from theprevious value stored within the previous value register 18, then errorrepair may be appropriate. Alternatively, if the erroneous output signalvalue is relatively close to the previous value stored within theprevious value register 18, then error repair may not be justified andthe time and energy it would consume can be saved by disabling the errorrepair circuitry. The previous value register 18 may in some embodimentsstore multiple previous values (and the error status of these values)for use in determining whether or not error repair should be disabled aswill be described later.

FIG. 3 schematically illustrates an integrated circuit 2 similar to thatillustrated in FIG. 2. In this example embodiment the exclusive-OR gateis retained as this generates a precise error signal which can bedirectly used when error tolerance is not being supported. A moderegister 20 is provided and is loaded under program instruction controlwith flag values including a fault-tolerance flag 22. Thisfault-tolerance flag 22 controls a multiplexer 24 which either uses theprecise error signals generated by the exclusive-OR gate 12 or thecritical/tolerable error signal generated by the error tolerancecircuitry 16 in dependence on whether or not error tolerance iscurrently active.

It will be appreciated that this setting of the fault-tolerance modeflag under program control allows a programmer to turn on and turn offthe error repair capability of the integrated circuit 2 for differentportions of the program code and for different program instructions.Thus, a programmer will know that they are executing a large block ofprogram instructions manipulating data values within which errortolerance can be supported. Accordingly, before such programinstructions manipulating data values are executed, the fault-tolerancemode flag can be set to permit error repair to be disabled. At the endof processing such a block of program instructions manipulating datavalues (which may be very lengthy in terms of time) the fault-tolerancemode flag can be switched off and accordingly the error repair circuitrybecome active in response to an error signal generated by theexclusive-OR gate 12.

The processor may also have a speculative mode of processing (analogousto privileged or user mode) in which the architectural state of theprocessor or system is not updated by the processing activity and inwhich the error repair circuitry can be disabled by the controlparameter. As architectural state is not being updated, the errors willnot affect the correctness, and therefore repair is not necessary.

In an alternative embodiment an application specific integrated circuit(which is not necessarily programmable) may use the same hardware indifferent modes and a state machine may switch on and off the errorrepair capability to match the mode. For example, an ASIC may contain adatapath including an adder which in one mode calculates addresses formemory accesses and in another mode data values. The state machine mayswitch on the error repair during address generation and switch it offduring the less critical data value generation.

FIG. 4 illustrates a further embodiment of an integrated circuit 2showing multiple stages of a general purpose processor pipeline. Theseinclude a fetch stage 26, a decode stage 28, a register read stage 30,an issue stage 32, and a plurality of stages 0 . . . n in each of twofunctional units 34, 36, as well as a write back stage 38. Registers forstoring output signals of these respective stages are providedtherebetween and some of these registers are provided with the errordetection and error repair circuitry previously discussed. In thisexample, error detection and error repair circuitry is provided withinthe functional units 34, 36. Each of these error detection and errorrepair circuitry elements has an associated fault-tolerance flag withina mode register 20 and these flags are used to selectively enable anddisable the repair circuitry associated with the different pipelinestages within the functional units 34, 36. This provides a high degreeof granularity in the disabling and enabling of error repair underprogram control.

FIG. 5 schematically illustrates a program instruction 40. This programinstruction includes a fault-tolerance field in the form of one bit.Depending upon the value of this fault-tolerance field, the errortolerance circuitry 16 will either serve to enable or disable errorrepair in respect of the processing performed for that programinstruction 40. In this way, error repair can be turned on and off on aninstruction-by-instruction basis. It will be appreciated in thistechnical field that it is normal for control bits to propagate along aprocessing pipeline in conjunction with data values that are beingmanipulated for that program instruction. The fault-tolerance bit withinthe fault-tolerance field can be another control bit which is propagatedalong the processing pipeline to switch on and off the error repaircircuitry in synchronism with the progress of that program instructionthrough the pipeline.

FIG. 6 illustrates different classes of instructions within aninstruction set. Some instructions, such as SIMD (single instructionmultiple data) and multiply accumulate (MAC) instructions, are generallyassociated with the processing of data such as multimedia data (video,audio) and accordingly it is possible in some embodiments that errorrepair is disabled when such program instructions are being processed.Conversely, another group of instructions, such as load storeinstructions, branch instructions and the like, are typically associatedwith the manipulation of address and control values. It is inappropriateto tolerate errors in the processing of such instructions andaccordingly the error repair circuitry will remain enabled when suchinstructions are being processed. The class (group) of instructions towhich an individual instruction belongs and can be identified at thedecode stage 28 within a processing pipeline and passed as a controlsignal along the pipeline as previously discussed.

FIG. 7 illustrates one example of how the control parameter used tocontrol the error tolerance circuitry 16 can be derived based upon theoutput signal itself The output signal can be determined to have anerror, but may never-the-less have the value that falls within afault-tolerated range such as the value at reference point 42illustrated in FIG. 7. Such an output signal value can be allowed tocontinue without being error repaired as it is not too far removed fromthe normal range of output signal values and accordingly will likelyproduce relatively little perturbation in the overall operation.Conversely, an output signal value having a value as at reference point44 in FIG. 7 is too far from the normal range and outside thefault-tolerated range and accordingly will serve as a control parameterto the error tolerance circuitry 16 which will result in the errorrepair circuitry being enabled to repair that output signal. It will beappreciated that the error tolerance circuitry will typically includecomparators and the like in order to permit such range comparisons to beperformed. Such comparators and range determinations will be familiar tothose in this technical field.

FIG. 8 illustrates another example embodiment of how the processingoutput signal value itself can be used to form a control parameter fordetermining whether or not error repair is enabled or disabled. In thisexample, an output signal value in error is compared with a temporallypreceding output signal value and providing it is within afault-tolerated range thereof error repair is disabled. Thus, an outputsignal value that is in error and is at point 46 will not be repairedwhereas an output signal value at point 48 will be repaired.

FIG. 9 schematically illustrates how a fault-tolerated range ofbehaviour can be based upon the repeated occurrence of errors. In someembodiments it may be appropriate to tolerate isolated errors in anoutput signal, but a sequence of more than a threshold number ofsuccessive output signal values in error should result in error repair.In the example illustrated in FIG. 9 a maximum of three successiveoutput signal values that are in error is permitted and, if a fourthsuccessive output signal values that is in error is detected, then errorrepair will be triggered.

FIG. 10 illustrates a still further way a control parameter forcontrolling whether or not error repair is disabled may be derived. Insome integrated circuits words 50 may be generated with these words 50including a header portion 52 and a signal value portion 54. The natureof the words may be such that their subsequent processing will not bepossible if the header portion 52 is invalid, or misinformed, whereas anerror within the signal value portion 54 may be tolerated. Accordingly,a control parameter for controlling whether or not error repair isinvoked can be based upon whether or not the header portion 52 is valid,e.g. meets predetermined format characteristics. Comparison circuitrycan be included within the error tolerance circuitry 16 in order to makethis comparison of the header portion 52 against predetermined formatparameters known to correspond to valid header portions 52.

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram schematically illustrating the abovetechniques. At step 56, the first processing circuitry generates anoutput signal. At step 58, the output signal generated by the firstprocessing circuitry is passed to second processing circuitry whichcommences processing based thereon. At step 60, the output signal isresampled. The resampling of the output signal forms the end point of apredetermined period starting with the first sampling of the outputsignal. A difference between these sampled values is a change in thesignal value during the predetermined period and is indicative of anerror. In other embodiments it will be appreciated that a changedetector could be used rather than double-sampling and comparison.

Step 62 in this example embodiment compares the original sample with thelater sample value and if these differ an error is detected. If thevalues do not differ, processing returns to step 56. When an error isdetected, step 64 reads or generates the control parameter whichcontrols whether or not error repair is to be performed. The controlparameter is set in dependence of the processing being performed. Forexample, the control parameter may be a simple fault-tolerance mode flagstored within a register. Alternatively, the control parameter may begenerated upon the basis of the output signal value that is in erroritself as well as one or more preceding output signal values or patternsof output signal values. The control parameter may also be based upon aprogram instruction resulting in the generation of the output signalthat is in error, such as in dependence upon a field within a programinstruction or a type of program instruction.

Step 66 determines whether or not error repair is disabled. If errorrepair is not disabled, then steps 68 and 70 serve to repair the errorand perform a repair operation, such as a partial or total pipelineflush and the refilling of the pipeline to regenerate the output signal.

If the determination at step 66 was that error repair is disabled,processing proceeds to step 72. Step 72 determines whether or not theoutput signal value is within a fault-tolerated range of values. If theoutput signal value which is in error is not within this fault-toleratedrange, then step 74 generates a substitute output signal value that iswithin a normal range. Steps 72 and 74 do not repair the error in theoutput signal as the true value of the output signal is not known.Rather steps 72 and 74 substitute a more acceptable value for the outputsignal value that is in error so as to reduce the disturbance producedby the error.

We claim:
 1. An integrated circuit comprising: first processingcircuitry configured to perform processing upon an input signal togenerate an output signal; second processing circuitry coupled to saidfirst processing circuitry and configured to perform further processingupon said output signal; error detecting circuitry configured to detecterrors in said output signal at a time after said second processingcircuitry has started to perform said further processing using saidoutput signal; and error repair circuitry configured to respond to anerror in said output signal detected by said error detecting circuitryto perform an error repair operation; wherein said input signal is aword within a data stream, said word comprising a header portion and adata load portion; and said error detection circuitry and said errorrepair circuitry are configured such that: (i) if said error is withinsaid header portion, then said error is repaired; and (ii) if said erroris within said data load portion, then said error is not repaired.
 2. Anintegrated circuit as claimed in claim 1, comprising comparisoncircuitry configured to compare said header portion againstpredetermined format parameters corresponding to valid header portionsto detect if said header portion includes an error.
 3. An integratedcircuit as claimed in claim 1, comprising error tolerance circuitrycoupled to said error repair circuitry and configured to determinewhether or not said output signal matches a predetermined format, saiderror tolerance circuitry disabling said error repair circuitry fromrepairing said error if said output signal matches said predeterminedformat.
 4. An integrated circuit comprising: first processing means forperforming processing upon an input signal to generate an output signal;second processing means for performing further processing upon saidoutput signal, said second processing means coupled to said firstprocessing circuitry; error detecting means for detecting errors in saidoutput signal at a time after said second processing circuitry hasstarted to perform said further processing using said output signal; anderror repair means for performing an error repair operation in responseto an error in said output signal detected by said error detectingmeans; wherein said input signal is a word within a data stream, saidword comprising a header portion and a data load portion; and said errordetection means and said error repair means are formed such that: (i) ifsaid error is within said header portion, then said error is repaired;and (ii) if said error is within said data load portion, then said erroris not repaired.
 5. A method of operating an integrated circuitcomprising the steps of: perform processing with first processingcircuitry upon an input signal to generate an output signal; performingfurther processing upon said output signal with second processingcircuitry coupled to said first processing circuitry; detecting errorsin said output signal at a time after said second processing circuitryhas started to perform said further processing using said output signal;and in response to an error in said output signal detected by said errordetecting circuitry, performing an error repair operation; wherein saidinput signal is a word within a data stream, said word comprising aheader portion and a data load portion; and said steps of detectingerrors and said step of performing an error repair operation operatesuch that: (i) if said error is within said header portion, then saiderror is repaired; and (ii) if said error is within said data loadportion, then said error is not repaired.
 6. A method as claimed inclaim 5, comprising the step of comparing said header portion againstpredetermined format parameters corresponding to valid header portionsto detect if said header portion includes an error.
 7. A method asclaimed in claim 5, comprising the steps of determining whether or notsaid output signal matches a predetermined format and disabling saiderror repair circuitry from repairing said error if said output signalmatches said predetermined format.